‘Of course not,’ Korya replied. ‘We prefer our arguments messy, ugly, with plenty of spilled blood.’

He glanced sharply across at her. ‘More news of the civil war?’

‘Deniers came into the camp yesterday. Hunters who’d come home to their forest camps to find their mates slaughtered. The children too. Those hunters have lost their black skin. They’re now grey, as grey as the Dog-Runners when they smear themselves in ash.’ She shrugged. ‘Rituals of mourning, only with the Deniers, it’s permanent.’

Arathan fell silent, as if considering her words, as they worked their way through the ruins. They had moved past the squatters now, and the solemnity of a discarded city hung heavy in the still air.

‘I have to go back,’ Korya said.

‘Back? To what? You were made a hostage. You’re not yet of the proper age to be released.’

‘Haut’s going with Hood, whatever that means. He’s been looking to hand me off to some other master, or tutor, or whatever title fits. But I won’t go. I’m not interested in listening to old men or, even worse, old women, and all their tired, worn-out ideas.’

‘You’re quick to reject the wisdom of your elders, Korya.’

‘And you waste your life away scribbling useless confessions from a suicidal Jaghut too weak-kneed to actually go through with it. In case you haven’t been paying attention, sorcery is now among us, wild currents of magic. All you need to do is reach for it.’

‘And have you?’

She frowned. ‘Haut tells me my aspect awaits elsewhere. It’s why he made me a Mahybe.’

‘Oh? And what is your, uh, aspect?’

‘Kurald Galain. Darkness. The sorcery of Mother Dark herself.’

Ahead, seemingly standing alone, oddly distinct from all the hovels surrounding it, was a stone house with a peaked roof and a squat corner tower. A low wall marked the yard and a gaping gateway the entrance on to the path. ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said Arathan. ‘She doesn’t grant anyone the gift of sorcery.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll just take what I need. It’s important. Haut explained everything. Blood has been spilled. Hood’s wife slain by an Azathanai, corrupting all the sorcery K’rul unleashed. That needs answering, by a purifying form of sorcery, what Haut calls elemental. And the magic of Dark is elemental.’

‘And Light?’

‘The same.’

‘So Urusander and his legion have a right to the power they seek. A just cause for this civil war.’ When she said nothing, he gestured towards the stone house. ‘There it is. An Azath House.’

‘Doesn’t matter if the cause is just, if the way of achieving it is a crime.’